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Wednesday March 7

We saw many, many audio products during our CES adventure this year. There were traditional audio companies offering expensive hifi speakers, high-tech amplifiers, and receivers, and many newer companies offering Bluetooth speakers that featured Google Home and Alexa "smart" assistant integration. One of our most interesting finds, however, was a company going in an entirely different direction with their products. Como Audio is a US-based company led by industry veteran Tom Devesto that makes wireless speakers that blend old-school design with modern connectivity. The Amico is the entry point into the Como Audio ecosystem; we think it's very charming.{/exp:char_limit}...

HomePod may leave a lot to be desired in its current state (and the occasional wood-stained ring), but we’ve seen no reports of Siri spontaneously laughing for no apparent reason. The same can no longer be said for Amazon Echo’s Alexa…

Do you find the blue light emitted by your Mac's screen make it harder to go to sleep, especially if you're at the keys late in the day? AppleInsider explains how to use Night Shift in macOS to automatically make gradual changes to the the color of the display, to help you get a good night's rest.

UnitedHealthcare is the latest insurance firm to look to Apple Watch as an incentive to keep its customers healthy. The provider will not only offer the option to earn an Apple Watch for essentially free, but it will allow users to earn up to $1,000 toward medical bills after the cost of the wearable.

A lot of people argue that apps on the Apple Watch are completely and utterly useless —insisting that complications are the true potential behind Apple Watch. However, the app Golf Plus wants to buck that trend by potentially replacing your high-end golf analyzing gear with Apple Watch.

It’s tax season so please make sure your less tech-savvy family and friends are aware of scams in general and this type specifically. My wife almost got caught in a “Canada Post” phishing scheme a few days ago.

Reports of a strange error from owners of Amazon's Echo device range have surfaced, claiming the Alexa digital assistant is making an odd 'laugh' sound at random times, with the noises sometimes made without any verbal prompts, commands, or external forces interacting with the voice-activated speakers.

A new report from Rosenblatt analyst Jun Zhang in Barrons suggests that Apple’s rumoured Face ID enabled iPad Pro models may make their debut at this year’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference in June. Zhang expects that the new devices could offset some persisting weaknesses in iPhone X sales, and estimates that the new iPad Pro would be ready for mass production with a release date in late Q2 2018. Rumours of Face ID coming to the…

Heavy Metal was unabashedly sexist, even misogynist, but as a kid I devoured every issue, in particular, the amazing writing. I’d never read the fantasy genre before discovering it in the pages of Heavy Metal.

A new report today shares the forecast that Apple will be making even more moves to offer some of its products at more affordable prices this year. The new products to allegedly receive even lower price tags include both MacBook Air and a new HomePod. Meanwhile, another report today suggests that a new iPad Pro with Face ID could show up as soon as June at WWDC — earlier than others expect.

U.S. health insurer UnitedHealthcare is adding the Apple Watch Series 3 to its Motion program, which lets people earn up to $1,000 per year off their insurance premiums -- assuming they meet daily fitness goals.

In a report to clients — as noted by AppleInsider — Rosenblatt Securities' analyst Jun Zhang says Face ID iPad Pros will ship late in the June quarter.

Apple is expected to update its 10.5- and 12.9-inch Pros with front-facing TrueDepth cameras, enabling Face ID, Animoji, and other 3D-sensing technologies. Zhang thinks the tech giant will ship about 6-8 million updated Pros in the June quarter.

Chances the analyst is right, per the Sellers Research Group: 90%. There’s little doubt that Face ID is coming to the tablet line (at least some models). Both second-generation Pros debuted in June last year. It makes sense for Apple to debut them at June’s Worldwide Developer Conference with availability following shortly thereafter. (WWDC hasn't been officially announced, but rumors are pointing toward June...

New reports from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News and Japanese blog Mac Otakara are suggesting that Apple may have a more inexpensive HomePod model in the works for release later this year, MacRumors reports. While the report is unclear as to what would differentiate the lower-end model from the current HomePod, it seems to suggest that it would be a smaller version, perhaps intended to compete on price with Amazon and Google’s speakers, but…

Deckset is the latest macOS app to join the growing list of software that has outgrown the stagnant Mac App Store. Citing a lack of flexible pricing options, Deckset is leaving the Mac App Store as it launches version 2.0.

Apple has released a fourth watchOS 4.3 beta along with new public betas for iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3, matching the fourth developer betas released earlier this week. Featuring a build number of 15T5199f, the sparse release notes don’t suggest any significant changes since the prior beta. watchOS 4.3 is expected to bring iPhone music control back to the Apple Watch and allow Nightstand mode to work in portrait orientation. The latest beta…

Microsoft will be moving away from offering Windows 10 S as a separate operating system release in favor of a built-in 'S Mode,' an executive has advised, confirming an earlier rumor it was looking to replace the stripped-down Windows version in favor of an option in full Windows 10 installations.

Owners of Amazon Echo devices with the voice-enabled assistant Alexa have been pretty much creeped out of their damn minds recently. People are reporting that the bot sometimes spontaneously starts laughing — which is basically a bloodcurdling nightmare.

Step through the article, read the tweets. This has all the elements of a next-gen horror movie. I can’t help but wonder if there’s IoT hacking going on here, if there’s not someone having a good laugh over this.

The world’s oldest known message in a bottle has been found half-buried at a West Australian beach nearly 132 years after it was tossed overboard in the Indian Ocean, 950km from the coast.

Until now, the previous world record for the oldest message in a bottle was 108 years, four months and 18 days between jettison and discovery.

The message is dated 12 June 1886 and was jettisoned from the German sailing barque Paula as part of a long-term German oceanographic experiment to better understand global ocean currents and find faster, more efficient shipping routes.

Apple has released an update for Apple Music for Android users, rolling in some of the improvements that will also be coming to the Apple Music app in iOS 11.3. In addition to “significantly improv[ing] stability” and reliability on more devices, the update lets users watch music videos in fullscreen or inside the Now Playing view, continue watching videos while browsing through the Apple Music app, listen to music videos in the background…

Account credentials for Apple's online services are being sold by online scammers for an average of $15.39, a report into stolen account sales on the 'dark web' reveals, but despite the seemingly low cost, Apple-based accounts appear to be priced more than individual user accounts for a considerable number of other online destinations.

Whether you’re a developer who’s working on mobile apps, or just someone enjoying the millions of apps available for your phone, today is a very special day. It’s the ten year anniversary of the original iPhone SDK.

I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that this release changed a lot of people’s lives. I know it changed mine and had a fundamental impact on this company’s business. So let’s take a moment and look back on what happened a decade ago.

First things first, this is a great look back at a moment in time. The iPhone shipped, but there was no SDK, the secret (VERY secret) sauce that let developers build apps that sat on the shoulders of Apple’s iPhone software designers.

Craig tells the story of that first wave of folks who found ways to pry the mysteries of iPhone OS mechanics from the clues of the native apps built by Apple, dumping the classes of those apps and working out how they did what they did.

A small yet colorful part of the iTunes Store will be history by year's end. According to an internal Apple email obtained by Metro, Apple will stop taking iTunes LP submissions this month. Apple confirmed the plans to The Verge, signaling the impending end of the paid multimedia album experience on iTunes.

The leaked email reportedly said, "Apple will no longer accept new submissions of iTunes LPs after March 2018,” and “existing LPs will be deprecated from the store during the remainder of 2018. Customers who have previously purchased an album...

Google has started to roll out its visual search tool Google Lens to more mobile devices, expanding from its previous exclusivity to the company's Pixel smartphones, making the feature available to Google Photos users on Android before it arrives on the iOS version of the image management app.

Ireland has chosen the Bank of New York Mellon to administer an escrow fund of up to 15 billion euros (about $18.6 billion) in disputed taxes that the European Commission (EU) ordered the government to collect from Apple, reports Reuters.

The EU, Europe’s anti-trust and consumer investigation agency, claims that Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have attracted investment and jobs by helping big companies avoid tax in other countries, including EU members. The commission suspects Ireland was too lenient in rulings it gave to Apple and which helped the company shield tens of billions of dollars in profit from taxation. At 12.5%, Ireland’s corporate tax...

According to ET News, Apple will ditch the “notch design” in 2019 iPhones. The design provides a concave spot at the top of the smartphone screen that’s home to the front-facing camera, separate infra-red camera for Face ID, dot projector, flood illuminator, speaker, microphone, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor.

The article says Apple’s plan is "to improve obstacles such as 3D sensor and camera module that were in the way of implementing a full-screen on the front of an iPhone.” However, ET News doesn’t say how this will be accomplished.

According to the Sellers Research Firm (that’s me), Apple will indeed do this — IF the company can find a way to keep the current functionality housed in the notch while offering a full-screen display.

For Wednesday’s iLounge Deal, you can pick up the 1MORE Quad Driver In-Ear Headphones for only $149.99 — that’s 25% off the regular price. These elite headphones are the first to be THX® Certified and have been expertly tuned by Grammy-winning sound engineer Luca Bignardi for a fully balanced and ultra-realistic soundstage. Even with all the incredible sound and noise-isolating features, however, they’re still extremely portable…

A few months ago, a complaint started popping up from users downloading or updating our apps: “Geez, your downloads are really slow!”

If you work in support, you probably have a reflexive reaction to a complaint like this. It’s vague. There’s a million possible factors. It’ll probably resolve itself by tomorrow. You hope. Boy do you hope.

Except… we also started noticing it ourselves when we were working from home. When we’d come in to the office, transfers were lightning fast. But at home, it was really, seriously getting hard to get any work done remotely at all.

So, maybe there was something screwy here?

This is a fascinating story, well told. In a nutshell, Panic got reports of slow downloads from a non-trivial subset of their customers, wrote a script to try to find a common link, and actually found that link. And it was Comcast.

The Irish government has reportedly selected Bank of New York Mellon to control an escrow fund holding up to $18.6 billion in back taxes collected from Apple, pending attempts to reverse a ruling by the European Commission.

BlackBerry Ltd on Tuesday filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook Inc and its WhatsApp and Instagram apps, arguing that they copied technology and features from BlackBerry Messenger.

And:

“Defendants created mobile messaging applications that co-opt BlackBerry’s innovations, using a number of the innovative security, user interface, and functionality enhancing features,” Canada-based BlackBerry said in a filing with a Los Angeles federal court.

One of the patents in question covers the concept of a badge, that is, a changing number tied to an icon that reflect, for example, the current number of unread email messages.

Check out this thread from The Verge’s Nilay Patel:

Ummmm BlackBerry is suing Facebook for infringing a patent that claims to cover…. displaying a count of unread messages on a notification dot. pic.twitter.com/sGqetm6qbH

A Korean report claims that Apple will drop the notch from its 2019 OLED iPhones. The company is said to be working on a new design where the screen will ‘completely fill the front of new iPhones.’

No details are provided about how Apple would deal with all of the technology currently housed in the notch. This includes the front-facing camera, separate infra-red camera for Face ID, dot projector, flood illuminator, speaker, microphone, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor …

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google today launched Chrome 65 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Additions in this release include Material Design changes and new developer features. You can update to the latest version now using the browser's built-in silent updater or download it directly from google.com/chrome. Chrome 65 comes with a few visual changes. The most obvious is related to Google's Material Design mantra. The extensions page has been completely revamped to follow it. Next up, Chrome 65 replaces the Email Page Location link in Chrome for Mac's File menu with a Share submenu. As you might expect, Mac users can use this submenu to share the URL of a current tab via installed macOS Share Extensions. Speaking of Macs, Chrome 65 is also the last release for OS X 10.9 users. Chrome 66 will require OS X 10.10 or later. Moving on to developer features, Chrome 65 includes the CSS Paint API, which allows developers to programmatically generate an image...

On Feb. 16, I published an updated review for Default Folder X (https://tinyurl.com/ybm5au72), one of my favorite macOS utilities ever and one I’ve used for years. Recently, I interviewed St. Clair Software’s Jon Gotow, the man behind the app.

What was the impetus for creating Default Folder?

Jon: Way back in 1988, I was working on my Masters thesis and was really frustrated that the Open and Save dialogs in Microsoft Word would always open to the folder containing the Word application. I had to navigate to a different folder every damned time I saved a new draft, opened a new CricketGraph chart, imported a new MacDraw diagram, etc. It drove me crazy - especially because my state-of-the-art Mac Plus was far from speedy.

I'd written some Mac applications for my engineering class projects and knew there were low memory globals in System 5 that determined what folder the file dialogs would initially show...

A bank has now been appointed to manage the escrow fund for the €15B ($18.6B) in back-taxes the European Union decided Apple had to pay to the Irish government.

It took some time to agree the arrangements as Apple expects to get the money back at the end of a legal battle expected to take many years, and it will want to ensure the funds have been well invested during that time …

Sonnet Technologies’ 1TB version of its Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive makes a great product even better. It’s a new model of the pocket-sized solid-state drive (SSD) storage device that packs a Thunderbolt 3 interface.

Now the drive is equipped with 1TB of NVMe flash storage and leverages the 40Gbps bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 to deliver data transfer speeds up to 2600 MB/second. The Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive was designed for pro users and doesn’t require an AC power adapter.

However, it’s also great for non-pro users who need a high capacity drive to expand the limited storage of most Mac laptops. And it’s a great solution for transferring or sharing info between multiple Macs.

Measuring a compact 2.8 inches wide by 4.1 inches deep by 1.25 inches tall, the Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive connects to any compatible Mac or Windows computer, or at the end of a Thunderbolt 3 device daisy chain thanks to its 0.5-meter Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps...

Not content with threatening import tariffs on aluminum and steel that could badly damage US automative and aircraft industries but have little impact on Apple, Trump is now considering far broader forms of protectionism.

His latest proposals could hit consumer electronics imported from China, with ‘the most severe scenario’ seeing Apple products caught in the net …

Apple has been granted a patent (number 9,911,123) for its Apple Pay interface. Apple Pay is the mobile payment and digital wallet service that lets users make payments using an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad or Mac.

The tech giant’s patent notes that a mobile device receives and stores information for one or more payment accounts. It’s used to make payments using the payment accounts. In some examples, authorization to proceed with a payment is performed before each purchase made by the user.

The authorization process can include receiving a verification of the user, such as a fingerprint scan or passcode. In some examples, a payment account is selected from among available payment accounts. In some examples, an indication is displayed of a digital item associated with a purchased item. In some examples, a payment transaction is initiated with participants of an ongoing communication. In some examples, an application of a retailer is invoked based on the availability of...

On a regular basis, Apple World Today posts a list of notable new apps or app updates that have been released. They may not necessarily be new, but they're popular and deserve mention. Here are today's picks.

iOS Apps/Updates

Health Endeavors has launched One Touch Health Smart Record. The app puts consumers in control of their health care record and applies data-driven intelligence to the health data. Consumers may request or send their electronic health record using direct messaging. “This is the beginning of the end of interoperability issues in health care,” said Kris Gates, CEO, Health Endeavors.

Apple has recently added more than 20 new regional banks and credit unions across the United States, as follows:

Advancial Federal Credit Union

Anahuac National Bank

ASI Federal Credit Union

Auburn State Bank

BankSouth

Burbank City Federal Credit Union

CentralAlliance Credit Union

Columbine Federal Credit Union

Connections Bank

DCH Credit Union

Hastings Federal Credit Union

Iowa-Nebraska State Bank

Lea County State Bank

LegacyTexas

McCook National Bank

Minnesota Valley Federal Credit Union

Peoples Bank (Oklahoma added)

St. Francis X. Federal Credit Union

TS Bank

West Suburban Bank

Winchester Savings Bank

Apple Pay is also said to be arriving in Brazil, which will make it the first country added in 2018. The timing of the launch has yet to be released, but it’s possible it could be timed with iOS 11.3 which is expected around...

The format offered a rich experience with digital music and could include lyrics, photos, and liner notes as well as access to video.

The format had never been optimized for iPhone or iTunes, and while the special iTunes format has been around for almost ten years but only around 400 albums have used it.

Per Metro, Apple will discontinue iTunes LP submissions on April 1st.

‘Apple will no longer accept new submissions of iTunes LPS after March 2018,’ it wrote. ‘Existing LPs will be deprecated from the store during the remainder of 2018. Customers who have previously purchased an album containing an iTunes LP will still be able to download the additional content using iTunes Match.’

Apple still provides technical guidance for the iTunes LP format through its TuneKit API.

Apple looks to be shifting its focus to its Apple Music subscription service, which offers similar elements...

Tuesday March 6

The White House is reportedly mulling tighter restrictions over Chinese investments and imports into the U.S., conditions that could have a negative impact on the multitude of domestic tech companies manufacturing goods in China.

Uber announced today that its self-driving trucks have been operating in Arizona for the last couple of months. The company said it has two main transfer hubs in Sanders and Topock, but other than that, Uber is being pretty tight-lipped about the ope...

Billy McFarland has admitted that he forged documents and lied to investors to convince them to pour a total of $26 million into his company and the now infamous Fyre Festival. He was arrested last year after what he touted as "the cultural experienc...

A pair of recent reports have indicated that Apple is currently developing its own over-ear headphones, slated for release as early as the end of this year.

As is the case anytime a new Apple product is rumored, everyone quickly speculates as to what it could be called. Thus, it’s time for the same conversation about Apple’s headphones. What do you think they’ll be called?

The White House is gearing up to request that law enforcement and security agencies be allowed to track and shoot down civilian drones, Bloomberg reported. An official told the publication that the effort has been underway for months and it involves...

It's taken a while, but finally Google Home speakers in the UK can be used to make hands-free voice calls. The feature was announced at Google I/O 2017 and introduced in the US last August. Brits have waited patiently since then (or switched to Alexa...

Honda said it wanted to sell its Urban EV Concept sometime in 2019, and now it's official. The automaker has announced that it will start taking orders for a production version of the tiny retro electric car in early 2019, with a European launch in...

A recent op-ed reminds U.S. citizens that Internal Revenue Service impersonators are out in force this tax season and, like last year and year before, some are looking to fleece unwitting victims by asking them to pay back taxes with iTunes gift cards.

Despite artist Matt Furie's attempts to reclaim his Pepe The Frog character from neo-Nazis, his cartoon is still being used by the far-right. He created Pepe in the early 2000s and has described the character as a "peaceful frog-dude" whose true natu...

Midweek deals are going on now with savings of up to $1,000 off. Pick up a high-end Late 2016 15" MacBook Pro (2.9GHz, 16GB, 512GB, Radeon 460) for $2,099. DJI's Mavic Pro drone is also $230 off, while $100 iTunes / App Store codes are just $85 while supplies last.

Apple on Tuesday issued the latest iteration of its Apple Music app for Android, delivering a handful of enhancements, namely music video playback options, that bring the title more in line with its iOS counterpart.

We’re still a few months a way from the official debut of iOS 12, but that hasn’t stopped designers from using their imaginations to depict how the update could change iOS. Today, a new concept imagines an all-new Music app in iOS 12, including the return of Cover Flow…

Google Lens is making it way from the Pixel to Android devices and iPhones alike starting today. In a roundabout way, that is. The AI-powered photo analyzing app will live inside Assistant in Google Photos, as spotted by 9to5 Gooogle. The announcemen...

Every year, the vocabulary druids at Merriam-Webster decide which words bubbling to the top of the cultural consensus should be immortalized forever in its dictionary. In early 2017, the list of over 1,000 additions included CRISPR and botnet, a clea...

As tax day quickly approaches in the United States, scammers are ramping up their efforts to swindle Americans out of their money. CNBC this week highlights a growing scheme that sees scammers asking people to pay their taxes with iTunes gift cards…

The AWT News Update is on hiatus while my compadre, Steve, takes a road trip. In its place, I’ll offer a text-only (no podcast) summary of breaking stories with a tip o’ my hat to my former website, Apple Daily Report.

A British Columbia couple are demanding Apple pay $600,000 in uninsured losses after they were forced to close their farm business following a devastating house fire that they claim was sparked by a faulty iPhone. Cathy and Ian Finley believe a three-month-old iPhone 6 left plugged into a charge cord somehow heated up and started a fire in their living room in October 2016.

Apple has posted a new "Welcome Home" HomePod video to its YouTube channel. This one is directed by filmmaker Spike Jonze.

The US military's Project Maven is getting some help using AI to interpret drone footage from a not-entirely-unexpected source: Google. The company has confirmed a Gizmodo report that it's offering TensorFlow programming kits to the Defense Departm...

Apple is partnering with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in the U.S. and Volkswagen in Europe to offer new car buyers six months of Apple Music with select models supporting the CarPlay platform, doubling the streaming service's normal trial period.

Asmodee reveals the current state of its upcoming digital board game "Scythe" arriving soon on Mac and iOS, as Feral Interactive delays the release of the iPhone-compatible version of "Rome: Total War" until the summer.

As more companies and services are leveraging user data to greater extents, it’s becoming more and more important to be aware of your privacy preferences and how you can make sure your iPhone settings are in alignment. Whether it’s been a little while since you’ve checked out your privacy settings or you’ve never looked under the hood, follow along to make sure everything is set to your liking.

If you've donned a VR headset and immersed yourself in a proper virtual reality 'experience,' you might have seen chills, thrills, and...not too many people at once. Today, Intel released a demo showcasing a software solution to the crowd problem the...

Native Union is best known for making tech accessories that feature stand out designs with a dash of fashion. Its latest product continues that trend by mixing attractive materials and fun patterns with a low profile wireless charging pad for iPhone and Qi-compatible devices. Native Union’s Drop Wireless Charger also happens to compliment the space gray HomePod perfectly…

BlackBerry on Tuesday launched a lawsuit against Facebook, arguing that services like WhatsApp and Instagram deliberately copy features from BlackBerry Messenger, one of the draws of BlackBerry's once-dominant smartphones.

If you love stylish, '90s-style 2D side-scrolling brawlers like Golden Axe or Aztez, you'll dig the debut release from Household Games, a new studio made up of DrinkBox Studios, Queasy Games and Silicon Knights members. Way of the Passive Fist is ava...

Apple has teamed up with Volkswagen and Fiat Chrysler to offer a new perk for customers buying certain CarPlay-equipped cars. From May, eligible vehicles will come with a 6 month Apple Music trial, which typically runs $9.99 per month.

Apple has partnered with Volkswagen in Europe and Fiat in the US to giveaway these extended trials. New Apple Music subscribers will be able to take advantage of the full six month free offer, existing subscribers can get 3 months free. More details after the jump …

When it comes to doing something different with speakers, we can always count on iHome to lead the way with interesting new ideas, and needless to say we were intrigued enough by one of the company's latest offering, the Reflect Vanity Speaker, to give it a slightly closer look. It's a Bluetooth speaker coupled with an illuminated vanity mirror allowing you to listen to your favorite music or even take speakerphone calls while getting ready for a night out on the town. {/exp:char_limit}

Cancer screening isn't all that accessible -- you typically need an obvious genetic background that suggests you're at risk, which doesn't help if you slip between those cracks. You shouldn't have to run that gauntlet for much longer. The US Food and...

Back in 2009, iTunes 9 offered a way for artists and labels to pack in extra album material like art, videos and bonus tracks. Earlier on Tuesday morning, Metro found a leaked Apple document that spelled doom for the bundled extras. The Verge later c...

Enterprise and educational device management firm Jamf is helping a group of 150 Haitian students to engage with the digital world, by shipping an 'innovation pod' providing iPads and other technology, as well as a digital curriculum, to a school in one of Haiti's impoverished areas.

LG has announced pricing for its 2018 TV lineup. It includes nine new AI-enabled OLED TV models and seven AI-enabled Super UHD TV models, each coming with LG's ThinQ AI technology. The OLED line includes LG's Signature W8 series, which will be availa...

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple could kill off iTunes in the near future, a new report suggests. It cites an email that Apple reportedly wrote to people in the music industry recently, announcing the "end of iTunes LPs." The iTunes LP format was first introduced in 2009 and let publishers add interactive artwork, along with assorted iTunes Extras, with their content. The LP format never achieved great popularity. However, the fact that Apple plans to ditch iTunes LPs in 2018 potentially hints at the possibility that Apple may stop selling iTunes music downloads in the near future. The Apple email announcing the change was reportedly sent two weeks ago from an address at "The iTunes Store" and signed by "The Apple Music Team." But its existence has only been highlighted now through a report by the U.K. newspaper The Metro. "Apple will no longer accept new submissions of iTunes LPs after March 2018," the letter notes. "Existing LPs will be deprecated from the store during...

In addition to its Cyclone V10 cordless vacuum, today Dyson also unveiled its updated air-purifying fans. The new Pure Cool tower fan (TP04) and desktop fan (DP04) models may look familiar from afar, but in fact, they are slightly taller and wider th...

For many Mac users, the aesthetic of a MacBook Pro is just as important as what’s under the hood, and we’ve always admired Twelve South’s approach to creating accessories that blend right in, such as its venerable BookArc — a vertical MacBook stand with a design that matches the MacBook’s brushed aluminum look perfectly. Now comes BookArc möd, a new version of the stand that concedes that not everybody is into the metallic look, and sports a design more in tune with wood-focused desktops.

The U.S. government considers there to be possible national security risks in Broadcom's proposed $117 billion acquistion of Qualcomm, enough to warrant a full-scale investigation, the U.S. Treasury's deputy assistant secretary for investment security said in a letter to the two Apple suppliers.

The FCC is ready to do more to help Hurricane Maria victims beyond a task force and short-term cash infusions. Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed spending a total of $954 million to both fix and expand telecom networks in both Puerto Rico and the US Virg...

This month we’re teaming up with Caseco to give away Apple’s newest device, the HomePod, to one lucky 9to5Mac reader. Thanks to our sponsor Caseco, we’ll be throwing two $500 gift cards, one for the HomePod giveaway winner and another as a secondary prize. Head below for details on how to enter.

9to5 readers can also get 30% off Caseco accessories including its iPhone cases, chargers, Lightning cables, car mounts and more, all month long with promo code “9to5Mac30off“:

Twelve South has announced an update to its BookArc mod MacBook stand with a wood focused design. It works with most Mac laptops, including the MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt 3.

The folks at Twelve South say the revved BookArc is inspired by mid-century modern furniture design with a birch finish designed to complement to most decors and MacBook colors. The stand holds your MacBook vertically, minimizing desk clutter. BookArc möd comes with soft, interchangeable silicone inserts to fit current MacBooks (Thuderbolt 3 / USB-C), MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Retina.

Twelve South is launching it with a $10 discount for $49.99. This will be a temporary deal that will last for the next two weeks when the price will jump back up to $59.99.

One security feature a user could potentially find annoying is being locked out of an iPhone after a friend or family member entered multiple failed passcode attempts. In a case in China, a mother is furious after her toddler managed to lock her iPhone for 47 years.

AirPods remain a hot commodity even a year later, but they’re definitely not worth unemployment. Unfortunately, it sounds like a New Orleans police officer may have miscalculated that equation during a recent Apple Store visit…

Apple products can provide amazing learning opportunities for students, but those living in poverty often don’t get the chance to use such devices. Now education software firm Jamf is looking to make a difference in the education of underprivileged children with a new iPad focused initiative.

Google announced today that Gboard for Android is getting a handful of new languages including Korean and both traditional and simplified Chinese. The company said that those have been the most requested languages for Android -- they're already on Gb...

Have you ever purchased an expensive app on your iPhone and wondered if you could share it with your family or a select group of friends? AppleInsider shows you how to see if you can, and how to do it.

Did you think Airbus' Pop.Up flying taxi concept was a little drab? So did Audi. It teamed up with Airbus and Italdesign to unveil Pop.Up Next, a reworked version of the two-seat autonomous vehicle concept. The new version is more stylish than the...

BlackBerry has filed a lawsuit against Facebook for infringing the patent on its messaging technology in a Los Angeles Federal Court, according to a Reuters report. The lawsuit calls out Facebook, WhatsApp as well as Instagram for their use of instan...

Amazon hasn't had much of an answer to Netflix's numerous animated shows, but that should change in the near future -- and it's even 'borrowing' from Netflix in the process. The internet giant has ordered its first half-hour animated series, Undone,...

Halide launched as a gorgeous, gesture-based iPhone app almost one year ago, and the camera app continues to receive major updates and new features. Today’s Halide 1.7 release includes an advanced portrait mode feature, an AR depth viewer, and much more.

Software Updates via MacUpdate

BetterTouchTool adds many new, fully customizable gestures to the Magic Mouse, Multi-Touch MacBook trackpad, and Magic Trackpad.
These gestures are customizable:
Magic Mouse:
Pinch in / out (zoom... Read more

Tor Browser Bundle 7.5.2 - Anonymize Web...

The Tor Browser Bundle is an easy-to-use portable package of Tor, Vidalia, Torbutton, and a Firefox fork preconfigured to work together out of the box. It contains a modified copy of Firefox that... Read more

Monosnap 3.4.11 - Versatile screenshot u...

Monosnap lets you capture screenshots, share files, and record video and .gifs!
Features
Capture
Capture full screen, just part of the screen, or a selected window
Make your crop area pixel... Read more

Yummy FTP Pro 2.0.3 - $29.99

Yummy FTP Pro is an advanced Mac file transfer app which provides a full-featured professional toolkit combined with blazing speeds and impeccable reliability, so whether you want to transfer a few... Read more

Smultron 10.1.3 - Easy-to-use, powerful...

Smultron 10 is an elegant and powerful text editor that is easy to use. You can use Smultron 10 to create or edit any text document. Everything from a web page, a note or a script to any single piece... Read more

Time Out 2.4 - Break reminder tool with...

Time Out helps remind you to take work breaks throughout the day. It has two kinds of breaks: a "Normal" break, typically for 10 minutes after 50 minutes of work, so you can move about and relax,... Read more

Iridient Developer 3.2.2 - Powerful imag...

Iridient Developer (was RAW Developer) is a powerful image-conversion application designed specifically for OS X. Iridient Developer gives advanced photographers total control over every aspect of... Read more

DesktopLyrics 2.6.13 - Displays current...

DesktopLyrics is an application that displays the lyrics of the song currently playing in "iTunes" right on your desktop. The lyrics for the song have to be set in iTunes; DesktopLyrics does nothing... Read more

BusyContacts 1.2.8 - Fast, efficient con...

BusyContacts is a contact manager for OS X that makes creating, finding, and managing contacts faster and more efficient. It brings to contact management the same power, flexibility, and sharing... Read more

iClock 4.2.5 - Customizable menu bar clo...

iClock replaces the old Apple's default menu bar clock with more features, customization and increases your productivity.
Features:
Have your Apple or Google calendar instantly available from the... Read more

Latest Forum Discussions

How PUBG, Fortnite, and the battle royal...

The history of the battle royale genre isn't a long one. While the nascent parts of the experience have existed ever since players first started killing one another online, it's really only in the past six years that the genre has coalesced into... | Read more »

Around the Empire: What have you missed...

Oh hi nice reader, and thanks for popping in to check out our weekly round-up of all the stuff that you might have missed across the Steel Media network. Yeah, that's right, it's a big ol' network. Obviously 148Apps is the best, but there are some... | Read more »

All the best games on sale for iPhone an...

It might not have been the greatest week for new releases on the App Store, but don't let that get you down, because there are some truly incredible games on sale for iPhone and iPad right now. Seriously, you could buy anything on this list and I... | Read more »

Everything You Need to Know About The Fo...

In just over a week, Epic Games has made a flurry of announcements. First, they revealed that Fortnite—their ultra-popular PUBG competitor—is coming to mobile. This was followed by brief sign-up period for interested beta testers before sending out... | Read more »

The best games that came out for iPhone...

It's not been the best week for games on the App Store. There are a few decent ones here and there, but nothing that's really going to make you throw down what you're doing and run to the nearest WiFi hotspot in order to download it. That's not to... | Read more »

Death Coming (Games)

Death Coming 1.1.1.536
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Games
Price: $1.99, Version: 1.1.1.536 (iTunes)
Description:
--- Background Story ---You Died. Pure and simple, but death was not the end. You have become an agent of Death: a... | Read more »

Hints, tips, and tricks for Empires and...

Empires and Puzzles is a slick match-stuff RPG that mixes in a bunch of city-building aspects to keep things fresh. And it's currently the Game of the Day over on the App Store. So, if you're picking it up for the first time today, we thought it'd... | Read more »

What You Need to Know About Sam Barlow’s...

Sam Barlow’s follow up to Her Story is #WarGames, an interactive video series that reimagines the 1983 film WarGames in a more present day context. It’s not exactly a game, but it’s definitely still interesting. Here are the top things you should... | Read more »

Pixel Plex Guide - How to Build Better T...

Pixel Plex is the latest city builder that has come to the App Store, and it takes a pretty different tact than the ones that came before it. Instead of being in charge of your own city by yourself, you have to work together with other players to... | Read more »

Fortnite Will Be Better Than PUBG on Mob...

Before last week, if you asked me which game I prefer between Fortnite Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), I’d choose the latter just about 100% of the time. Now that we know that both games are primed to hit our mobile screens... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

MacBook Pro sale! B&H drops prices on new...

B&H Photo has dropped prices on new 2017 13″ MacBook Pros, with models now on sale for up to $200 off MSRP. Shipping is free, and B&H charges sales tax for NY & NJ residents only. Their... Read more

B&H Photo has the 1.4GHz Mac mini on sale for $399 for a limited time. Their price is $100 off MSRP, and it’s the lowest price available for a mini from any Apple reseller:
– 1.4GHz Mac mini (... Read more

Apple has a full line of Certified Refurbished iMacs available for up to $350 off original MSRP. Apple’s one-year warranty is standard, and shipping is free. The following models are available:
– 27... Read more

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